WARNING: No spoilers, actually. :)
Author's Note: This is a present for my good friend fallingangelsandstars. I followed in the footsteps of a really terrific person, and wrote her a story for her birthday. ;) This is from Dean's POV, and in my mind, it takes place sometime in season 1. Still, you can choose to see it during any point in the show you'd like.
Disclaimer: I don't own Supernatural.
I'm running through the blizzard squinting in the heavy snowfall at the dark shape twenty feet or so ahead of me.
The thing about a Black Dog is that it'll rip you to shreds if you give it half a chance. But if you sneak up on it part-way, make a sudden noise, and spook the thing…Well, Black Dogs have got nothing against living to terrorize another day. They're animals, after all. Sure, they're also bloodthirsty spirits, but they don't hold a grudge above their own survival. They'll flee.
And damn, but Sam had accidentally spooked this one into fleeing across the whole of Lake View Cemetery, leaving both of us to take up the chase.
I'm determined to catch the Dog before it gets to wherever it likes to hole up, so I pick up the pace now. I'm focusing on keeping my gun trained on the moving target and my feet as steady as possible across this increasingly slippery terrain.
Sam begins to fall behind and I'm gaining on the beast at last. With only ten feet between myself and the target, I let loose a shot. The shape ahead stumbles and goes down.
"Gotcha!" I shout victoriously.
Suddenly a loud crack splits the air and everything I know becomes burning cold as I'm abruptly submerged under freezing water.
It's disorienting being lost in dark depths, the water annihilating my senses with tendrils of icy wrath. I kick and thrash, fighting my way toward what I hope is the surface.
All that greets my attempts is a ceiling of ice. In a burst of fresh pain, my skull connects with a sheet of solidity, and the impact leaves me dazed.
I've lost track of the hole I fell through and now I'm trapped under the water. As lack of oxygen and hypothermia begin to set in, I feel like I'm growing heavier, even as my arms lazily rise toward the ice above. I work to stay awake, but dark spots begin to appear at the corner of my vision. I know this isn't good, but my mind has gone too fuzzy to really care.
I'm staring at the barrier between myself and fresh-air, feeling myself drifting toward unconsciousness, when my hand floats up to open water and my fingers feel the sting of wind.
I struggle to make my body cooperate with my will to swim towards the hole, but everything is just plain sluggish from the effects of the cold.
Out of nowhere there is a different hand grabbing onto mine tightly, and my body is pulled sideways. My skull scrapes and bumps along the ice, exacerbating my already existent head wound, before finally coming free of the water.
Everything is bright after the darkness of my time submerged and it's hard to make sense of my surroundings. But as I choke for air, I hear a familiar voice shouting, "Dean! I've got you. I got you, come on!"
Instantly my eyes lock onto my brother.
I can see that Sam is on his stomach on the ice, his hands clinging to my arms as he shimmies backwards, dragging me slowly from the clutches of my frigid bath. Soon I'm fully free of the water, but Sam carefully pulls me another dozen feet until we are clear of the frozen surface entirely. As the snow shifts under my body I can feel the ice is now gone, replaced by grass.
I remember when the ground had begun to feel slippery before I shot the Black Dog.
That was the lake, my brain concludes unhelpfully.
I lay there, cold and miserable, but I'm at least alive. Alive, and extremely tired. I feel my eyes drooping again, and I want nothing more than to be asleep. The darkness is calling out to me once more, and its allure is so strong.
But it's not strong enough.
"Dean!" Sam shouts my name again and the frantic tone in my little brother's voice snaps me back from the edge. Sleep can wait if Sammy needs me.
"S'm," The familiar word is slurred as it escapes my mouth.
"Yeah Dean, I'm right here. Crap, you're head's bleeding… I'm gonna get you to a hospital, Dean. You're gonna be fine. Just stay with me man, ok? You'll be fine." Sam's reassurances are tumbling out at lightning speed, and the whole time he speaks he's pulling my wet jacket and shirt off, replacing them with his own dry jacket.
I try and come up with a joke. Something about buying me dinner first maybe? But then I realize I can barely remember what 'dinner' even means, I'm so out of it, and I keep my mouth shut instead.
Sam somehow manages to hoist my prone form off the snowy ground and he begins a fireman carry to get me back to our car. I do my best to help, but by this point I really can't feel if my legs are doing anything at all. It's all sort of numb.
However, I can still feel when I get tossed to the right randomly, landing on my side in a fresh batch of snow with a surprised grunt.
I hear an intense scuffle unfolding somewhere to my left and my instinct is to try and reach for a gun. Damn it, I think when I realize my pistol must have sunk in the lake. Not that my arms-turned-stalks-of-lead would be much use anyway, but still…
A man's cry of pain rips through the roaring winds around me, and with every ounce of air in my lungs, I call out, "Sammy!"
More growling. More yells.
No answer.
I am forced to continue listening- entirely helpless to save my brother. It's basically my worst nightmare, but at least it only lasts a minute. Then there is a loud bang, a yelp, and silence.
I find myself being dragged awkwardly into a sitting position by Sam, and I breathe a sigh of relief that my brother isn't dead. Sam is moving oddly, but he quickly adjusts us both into the fireman carry once more saying, "Sorry, I've got you." And we're walking again before I can actually figure out what happened.
At last we reach the car and Sam bundles me into the passenger seat. I'm rapidly succumbing to the persistent calls of the darkness by this point, my head throbbing and my body about as cozy as a Frigidaire…
Sam glances at my face and whatever he sees there seems to startle him. He drives faster, repeating, "I've still got you."
I get the sinking feeling he's saying it more to convince himself than anything else, and I wish I could find the ability to open my mouth and tell him it'll be ok. Instead I slip into a heavy slumber.
But with Sam sitting in the driver's seat next to me, I think that somehow I will be ok.
OoO
I was right, apparently.
Many hours later I open my eyes and adjust slowly to the bright light of a hospital room, pausing for a second as I try to recall how I landed myself in a medical establishment this time.
"Dean! Hey, how're you doing?" Sam's worried voice brings an immediate sense of relief. If Sam is by my bedside and talking, then it means he's ok.
I turn to see my giant, messy, and obviously very tired brother sitting there gawking at me, one hand holding onto the rail of my bed (suspiciously close to my own hand, I notice) and the other poking out of a sling.
Alright, so maybe Sam's not completely 'ok'.
"What happened to your arm?" I rasp, my throat scratchy.
Sam rolls his eyes. "You almost froze to death and you're worried about my arm? Well thank god we know there was no brain damage from that concussion, Dean. You're definitely still thinking like yourself."
I take in what was just said and allow the memories to slowly return to me. The Black Dog, the chase, the icy water and my rescue…
Sam disappearing from sight for a few minutes and his pained cry.
"So…What happened to your arm?" I repeat, my new-found recollection of the events doing little to eliminate my concern.
Sam sighs, but eventually he says, "The Black Dog wasn't done yet. Your bullet stunned it I guess, but right after I got you out of the water the thing came at us. I guess it figured we were easy targets right then. Anyway, I got you clear and I fought it off. It bit my shoulder when it knocked me down, but I still had my pistol and I landed a clean shot to the heart. It's definitely dead now," Sam explains all of this like it was nothing. Definitely not like he'd saved my bacon twice in the span of a few minutes.
In fact, Sam won't even look me in the eye now. Now, I've been around this kid long enough to recognize when he's brooding about something, and the not-looking-me-in-the-eyes thing is a major sign.
"Sounds like a job well done to me, so what's bothering you about it?" I inquire knowingly.
Sam seems unsurprised by my ability to read him so well. He's quiet for a moment and I begin to wonder if he'll open up or not, but at last, Sam softly states, "This is all because of me. You wouldn't have fallen in if I hadn't messed up the hunt in the first place."
There is resignation in Sam's voice as if he is anticipating me being angry, and worse yet, like he thinks he deserves that. It bothers me a lot because if there is anything Sam deserves after having just saved my skin, it's definitely not resentment.
"Hey, you did good," I say gently.
"But you could have-" Sam starts to openly blame himself for my brush with death, but I quickly cut him off.
"I could have, but I didn't. That's all because of you," I inform him firmly.
Sam finally meets my gaze and I can see that he doesn't fully believe my words, but he nods anyway and mumbles, "Yeah, ok."
It amazes me sometimes that my little brother doesn't seem to understand how impressive he is. How good he is at saving people. At saving me.
"I'm dead serious, Sammy," I add, determined to get him to see reason. "Your dunce of a brother ran out on a barely-frozen lake and fell in. You pulled him out and finished off the monster he didn't gank the first time? Oh, and then you carried his dead-weight across an entire freaking cemetery with a gimp arm! I'd call that a win, dude."
We stare at each other again briefly, and this time there is a tiny hint of acceptance in Sam's eyes. Of course, I can also see he's getting ready to insist I wasn't as stupid as I just made myself sound, and I need to stop him before this talk gets too sappy.
"Then again, if you'd really wanted to be heroic you'd have jumped in the water with me," I joke.
"Why? So we could have frozen to death together?" Sam asks with an incredulous eyebrow quirk.
"Nah. Your giant legs would've touched the bottom and you'd have been able to walk us both right out. I mean, you'd have had to use your hulk arms to bust through the rest of the ice… But I'm sure it would've been no problem for you, Sasquatch," I deliver my lame punch line and it's worth it to see Sam laugh.
"Jerk," he mutters, but he's still smiling. I'm smiling too.
Because I know I'm lucky my brother is a hero, even if he doesn't see it in himself yet.
Secondary Author's Note: Thanks for reading! Feedback is greatly appreciated, so please don't be shy! :)
Special Note to fallingangelsandstars: I hope you enjoyed this. I was inspired by Sam's heroic yet humble nature that you got me thinking about when you told me you re-watched Sacrifice. ;) Also, I hope you have a totally fantastic birthday! :D (P.S. If you're reading this, I tried to send you an email but your email account apparently is no longer working, because it told me that the message "failed to send permanently" to that address. Thought you ought to know, in case you got hacked or something.)